I laughed when the waitress tells Harley she needs her hand.

“God how I adore you,” Harley declared.

The waitress flushed and parked the pitcher with a deliberate slosh into Harley’s lap. “I need this,” she protested, extracting her hand.

See Victory Garden “Adoration.”

It is significant that we learn that the waitress is Veronica Runbird. She is a waitress. Then she becomes Veronica Runbird. She becomes what Harley “is not.”

Veronica Runbird appears elsewhere with Harley (at a different time and space in my reading). One reader might claim that “this is how Harley and Veronica meet.” Another reader will claim, “No, this is another time in the novel. Another present moment.”

Another angle on the human surface of hands and eroticism.

Veronica, Harley, Urquhart. Human surfaces.